A Sukkah is a temporary structure constructed for annual use during the week long Jewish festival of Sukkot. The original source for this tradition is Leviticus 23:42-43, where it is described as a reminder of the booths that the children of Israel dwelt in during their journey through the desert from slavery in Egypt to freedom. In modern times the sukkah is a symbol of frailty and transience of life and shelter. While building a Sukkah is an annual Jewish ritual, it embodies many universal themes related to the nature of dwelling: new/old, open/closed, temporary/permanent.

Since biblical times, the sukkah-a temporary shelter celebrating the harvest and commemorating the exodus from Egypt – has served as the symbolic centerpiece of the Jewish festival of Sukkot. Today, revisiting the ritual of building a sukkah offers the opportunity to reimagine historically rooted ways of making, while exploring themes of transience, hospitality, and community. Detroit, home to 1300 urban farms, is also the only UNESCO City of Design in the United States. Sukkah x Detroit celebrates both. By soliciting contemporary sukkah design proposals for Detroit’s Capitol Park, the competition looks to combine design, agriculture, and cultural programming for this first edition of the Sukkah x Detroit event.